LG Polls: Imo PDP protests ISIEC demands of N50,000, N200,000 ‘validation’ fee from candidates

By Chinonso Alozie

Owerri – Ahead of September 21, 2024, council elections in Imo, the state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, on Tuesday raised an alarm over what it described as extortion of candidates of the party by the state Independent Electoral Commission, ISIEC, to the tune of N50,000, N200,000 for councillorship and Chairmanship candidates respectfully in the name of validation.

The PDP, Chairman, Austine Nwachukwu, disclosed this to newsmen in Owerri.

While saying that the party was fully ready for the council election and would reject any illegality, Nwachukwu said: “The issues are these, in our last interaction with the leadership of ISIEC on August 8, 2024, the Chairman Chief Charles Ejiogu with the full compliment of his Commissioners informed the stakeholders that he was invited by the security heads of the State to discuss the issues bothering on security about the election.

In the said meeting at Oguta, the ISIEC boss vehemently informed us that security chiefs expressed doubt on the safety of lives and property of Imo people on the day of the election, especially given recent bloody attacks and security breaches that left no fewer than 20 innocent citizens of the State dead and properties worth over 1 billion Naira destroyed.

“Regrettably, up to this moment, the ISIEC Chairman had neither briefed the political parties on the outcome of the meeting with security heads in the State nor released any further information regarding the conduct of the election.

“In that meeting, we also discussed the fee for the DF001 and DF002 (that is for the Chairmanship and Councilorship candidates) which we have not agreed on. We also talk about the modalities for the recruitment of ad-hoc staff to ensure that the ad-hoc staff are not card-carrying members of any political party in respect of the Returning Officers and Collation officers, to ensure fairness in the election. Furthermore, we did arrive at any conclusion with ISIEC on the date or deadline for the submission of party agents to the commission and ISIEC has since not called the parties to brief them on all of these issues.

“Lo and behold, in the wee hours of yesterday, September 16, 2024, we were alerted to a document circulated on social media that purportedly emanated by ISIEC and Signed by the Chairman inviting candidates to its office at Orlu Road for a validation. On getting there this morning to investigate the authenticity of the information, we were shocked to learn that ISIEC is flagrantly mandating Councillorship and Chairmanship candidates to pay N50,000 and N200,000 respectively to get validated,” PDP said.

The party said it was worried that; “We are surprised that up till now ISIEC had neither invited the political parties to brief us as the constitution demands on the issues we had earlier discussed, nor released any official information regarding the same. Where in the world does the electoral umpire relate with the candidates without the party that nominated and sponsored them. This is illegal and has no place in the laws of the land. More worrying is that these actions also contravene ISIEC’s own guidelines.”

Reacting, the state chairman of ISIEC, Charles Ejiogu, said: “Is there any side of the law that said ISIEC cannot take administrative charges ? It might interest you to know in 2023, I ran for the position of councilorship and paid N25,000 for validation charges.”

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